David Hockney paints like a toddler.

Result #1

His drawings are as painfully innocent as the boys in their school photos. He makes himself the artist he is. In spite of his youth, his work holds a special fascination for me. His paintings are perfect and overconfident, and yet, as I look at them, they are full of anxiety, anger, humor, and sadness. The work is painful, but it is also tender, offering a way of being that is both strong and vulnerable.

Result #2

What could be more childish than that? Or more childish than a toddler? I imagine him as the twin to Leni Riefenstahls babies. I imagine him as a child having a bad temper, a baby in a baby suit, with a gun. I imagine him as a little boy who has just gotten a copy of The New York Times and the front page is full of cartoonish men and women and cats and bears and schoolchildren in a childrens dress. I imagine him as a child in the midst of a mugging, looking at a big portrait of himself, and saying to himself, I got it. The artist himself looks a lot like Riefenstahl, and it is a little unsettling to find oneself in the room with his work, but Im sure theres nothing wrong with that. It is as if the artist has stepped out of the realm of imagination and gotten himself a role as adult.I think that Riefenstahls show is at least partly about a call to the worlds consciousness, and its also about a little bit of childs play. (Although, as Riefenstahls work suggests, the way that he deals with his art is not a matter of just going against the grain, its a matter of going against the grain of the art world. He is a good guy. I hope he doesnt get himself into too much trouble.) Riefenstahls art seems to be about making a kind of image of the world, not about making an image of anything. Thats the art world thing, and thats all we could expect from him. He has a lot of talent. He could probably do a lot with a little more of it.

Result #3

David Hockney paints like a toddler. There is a certain charm to his approach that I think can be traced to his fondness for the child-art worlds he appropriates and glamorizes. His drawings of drawings are often like pageants for an invisible soldier, with a scale of scale that is both monumental and fragile. The works, which are usually about two feet square, are made of paper that has been blown up, then folded and folded again, producing a soft paper that, although it might be reminiscent of the collages of Philip Pearlstein, is almost facilely painted, as if Hockney were picking up a rag from the floor and sanding it to a smooth texture. The drawings also include the textural flourishes of spray paint, the drippy lines of watercolor, and the more serious lines of graphite that mark the outline of the page. It is hard to say whether Hockneys pictures are humorous or serious, because they are both too small and too abstract to be both.Hockney seems to want to exploit the potential of the child-art world as a space where the artist can play with the fears and desires of others, and at the same time can reflect on his own. That world is perhaps best described as one in which one can play with ones own fears and desires, both of them drawn from childhood and both of them conditioned by the oppressive, authoritarian nature of the parental relationship. Hockneys drawings of drawings, and especially the drawings of drawings in a lot of shades of gray, suggest that the artist-child is not always both child and adult, and it is the child who is supposed to be the mature one. In Hockneys drawings, Hockney seems to be taking a position of complicity with the world of childish play as well as that of the adult world; he is involved with a pre-formal, pre-literate world, in which play is the most valid way to express feelings and feelings are expressed.

Result #4

David Hockney paints like a toddler. No one has ever been able to recognize it, but Hockneys work is all about the pleasure of looking at. His work is full of the inconstancy of one who cannot be certain of his own feelings. He is a child of the 90s who still appears to be in his mid-twenties, and he has the innocence of a child.In his recent show, Hockney continued to investigate the ambiguities of the human gaze, and his work, however, has become less and less convincing. In the past, he has been criticized for making his subjects look as if they were nothing more than empty shells. But it is not just the empty shells that Hockney is painting here. His subjects are now more elaborate, but this new work feels all too rigid and clear. One thinks of Henri Matisse, for example, or the modern painter, Robert Ryman, who paints, in a sense, exactly what he wants to be painting. Hockneys figures look like the faces of enigmatic adults, but there is something distinctly different about them, and it is the difference between a joke and a serious pose.Hockneys subjects are all males—some of them are in pairs, some alone. One sees them in groups, walking, standing, or sitting, and they are all generally posed, but not in a way that reveals their real state of mind. They are always hidden from view—they seem to occupy a state of repose. The men are not busy, but relaxed. Their bodies are relaxed and open, and they appear to be enjoying themselves. This is not to suggest that the men are autonomous; one doesnt see them as individuals. They are reduced to a state of being. If they were not so heavily composed, Hockneys figures might be seen as a series of distorted, abstractions—an aspect of his work that was also present in the works of both Salvador Dali and Jackson Pollock.

Result #5

He often seems to be on the verge of a complete breakdown and appears unable to find a suitable subject matter to work with. In the most recent paintings, he seems to have come full circle and begun to paint again. As in his earlier work, Hockney has become more and more involved with figures and landscape, and the color has become richer and more interesting. In the best paintings, he has managed to create an atmosphere of light and space which is powerful and relaxing. The subjects are often truly sublime; in some cases, the landscape itself is literally carved from the canvas. Hockney has created a new sense of what an artist is supposed to be; there is no shame in his desire to be at home with that. In this respect, the works are a real triumph of technical virtuosity and beauty.In a sense, this is what makes Hockneys work fascinating; it is not just the formal presentation of the subject matter, but the sheer visual impact which is so captivating. He seems to be able to create a very special and personal vision of his world, and he is working toward this through a deep personal commitment.